


Mac and Charlie: Badasses for Life

by vampiresuffrage



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Children being reckless, Gen, Implied Child Abuse, M/M, a couple allusions to dennis' eating disorder, also theres some macdennis in the sense that mac Is in love with dennis, but please lmk if i should change that and tag it, but they dont start dating or sleeping together or anything so i didnt tag with macdennis, canon typical...everything, children getting high, there also are some references to suicide in a not serious way, uncle jack is briefly talked about twice, very very brief mention of dennis and ms klinsky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23161051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampiresuffrage/pseuds/vampiresuffrage
Summary: On the first day of third grade, things changed forever. The stars aligned, Mac and Charlie met, and that was it. They were best friends forever right away. Like, for real. None of that teen movie bullshit though, they were both way too badass for that. No, they roamed the streets to find cool shit, they got high in Charlie’s basement, and they were both total party boys from the very beginning.(And yeah, Mac helped Charlie find quiet dark places when he was freaking out and Charlie didn’t tell anyone when Mac needed to get a cry out and they always made sure neither of them ever got lonely, but two bros supporting each other was pretty badass too.)
Relationships: Charlie Kelly & Mac McDonald
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	Mac and Charlie: Badasses for Life

**Author's Note:**

> here it is!!!!!! this was so fun to write i constantly think about how long mac and charlie have been friends for and all the shit theyve been through together and it makes me feel some type of way
> 
> thank you to the iasip big bang and my wonderful artist for motivating me to actually write this!
> 
> (also please read the tags for warnings!! because this is iasip theres some heavy things that are dealt with so i dont want anyone going into this and getting blindsided by any of it)
> 
> oh and just in case i didnt make it clear in tags, this is platonic mac and charlie!! i think charmac is cute but i prefer writing them as best friends!!

They met in third grade, back when Mac was still Ronnie and other kids weren't old enough to know to make fun of his name. Back then, they all thought it was funny, but funny in the way that got him friends. Charlie got held back a grade because he wasn't so good at reading, that’s why he was in third grade too even though he was an entire year older. Ronnie wasn't great at it either, but he was just barely good enough to pass. His teacher thought he had ADHD, but his mom and dad said they weren't gonna let a shrink tell him he was a special kid. So he just got stuck in remedial classes like Charlie. 

“What’s ADHD?” Charlie asked when Ronnie told him, looking like he was trying to piece it together himself. 

Ronnie shrugged. “I dunno, they didn’t tell me.”

And that was that. They decided to become best friends that day at recess. 

Charlie’s family had a phone but Ronnie’s didn’t--or, they did but he wasn’t allowed to use it because it was his dad’s for work--so when they wanted to play after school Ronnie just went home with Charlie. His mom and dad never asked why he didn’t get home until after dinner because they trusted him so much. 

Usually when Ronnie went home with Charlie, Charlie’s mom made them cookies because Ronnie’s mom never did. After they ate, she gave them ten dollars each and told them to go have fun and come back for dinner. Usually they went to the arcade but sometimes they saw a movie. It was fun being Charlie’s friend, even if he asked Ronnie to do, like, all of his homework. He still didn’t read so good and he got angry when he couldn’t figure it out. Ronnie was a good friend, so he did it for him, or at least read it to him and then wrote his answers down for him. 

Mrs. Kelly was real nice, Ronnie thought. She let him stay the night when his dad had his scary friends over and barely ever asked him questions about it, and she cooked them food out of those recipe books Ronnie saw ladies use on TV. Charlie always liked it when Ronnie stayed the night too because then Uncle Jack had to sleep on the couch. Ronnie told Charlie that was weird, but then Charlie punched him for it, so he didn’t say it any more. Charlie agreed to tell everyone that the black eye Ronnie got from it was because he fought off a sixth grader who tried to steal Charlie’s bike.

Of course, then their bikes got stolen for real and Ronnie had to go tell the priest so God wouldn’t take away more of his stuff for lying. Charlie said that he was being dramatic and Ronnie threw a rock at him and they didn’t talk about church anymore for a long time. 

It was good being friends with Charlie though. He was a real good friend most of the time. He always hung out with Ronnie when he was lonely and he kept secrets and he didn’t even call Ronnie a baby that one time he started crying because his dad yelled at him right before leaving for a whole month for work. 

Ronnie tried to be a good friend too. He did Charlie’s homework and he let him pick the movie when they went to the movie theater and he picked the lock to the janitor’s closet by the bathroom at school for Charlie so Charlie could scream in there where nobody would hear him and get him in trouble when he got frustrated. 

So basically, they were best friends. Like, for real best friends. Best because they were each other’s favorite and best because they were the best at being friends. Ronnie was even more best because he made Charlie pass third grade. 

When Mrs. Kelly saw the lowest grade Charlie had on his report card at the end of the year was a 73 she cried and hugged both of them and told Ronnie what a great study buddy he was for Charlie. She baked cookies and bought chocolate ice cream and let them build a blanket fort in the living room and stay up as late as they wanted to watch TV. Ronnie’s mom just nodded and said she was busy when Ronnie told her he had a C. She was stressed because she was waiting for his dad to get back. She was proud of him though, he could tell. She didn’t need to make cookies for him to know that she was proud of him. 

When summer started, Ronnie swiped a pair of swim trunks from Target that were red and black and totally sweet so he could go to the diving pool with Charlie. They went like every day and their parents let them go all by themselves which meant they could do whatever they wanted (until they got banned for a week for pushing kids who took too long off the diving boards). 

When they weren’t at the pool, they spent all day having adventures in the city looking for cool stuff. Charlie had a genius idea for them to use some of the money Mrs. Kelly gave them for the day to take the bus and get off somewhere random so they’d see stuff they never saw before. 

The second coolest thing they found was a guitar that still mostly worked in a dumpster out behind some apartments. They did rock paper scissors for it and Charlie won, so he spent like all day playing it. It sounded awful because it was so out of tune, but they didn’t know how to tune it or where they could go to do it, so when they got bored they found an empty parking lot where Charlie could smash it. He looked like a real rock star when he did it. 

The coolest thing they ever found was Poppins. Philly had probably billions of stray dogs, but usually they were either mean or sad or hid from people. Not Poppins though. Poppins was way too cool for any of that. 

Charlie and Ronnie were taking turns hitting stuff in an alley with a big stick they found to see which one of them could break it. Charlie was the one who finally broke it by hitting it as hard as he could against the edge of a trash can. The half that broke off flew up in the air and hit the side of another trash can that was knocked over. 

A dog trotted out of it, chewing on a piece of cardboard. He didn’t look like he was scared of them, just like he wanted to see what they were doing. Ronnie and Charlie looked at each other, then back to the dog. Charlie threw the half of the stick he was still holding before Ronnie got halfway to the stick on the ground. 

The dog actually fetched. Charlie’s mind was made up by the time the dog got back. “I’m taking him home.”  
  
“Dude, you got the guitar!” 

“And I let you help me smash it! My house is way better for a dog and you know it!”  
  
“He would love my house! I’ve got all sorts of stuff he could chew on!”  
  
“Your dad’s gonna eat it when he comes home!” 

Ronnie kicked Charlie right in the knee. Charlie fell over, but as soon as he started to fall he grabbed Ronnie's arm so he fell too. They just barely started to fight when the dog grabbed the back of Ronnie’s shirt with his teeth and started pulling. Ronnie was so confused that it actually stopped him from hitting Charlie in his dumb face. 

He got off Charlie and stared at the dog again. The dog was panting, and when Ronnie reached out to pet him, he climbed up in Ronnie’s lap. Charlie sat up too to watch them. 

“See? He totally likes me more.”

Charlie huffed. “My house is still better though dude! Plus, you stay over all the time! You’ll see him every day!”  
  
Ronnie thought about it. His mom probably wouldn’t let him get a dog while his dad wasn’t home anyways. “I can come see him whenever I want?”  
  
“Obviously!”  
  
Ronnie sighed. “Fine.”  
  
Charlie yelled in victory. “What should we name him? It’s gotta be something my mom likes, or else I can’t keep him.”  
  
They argued for a while about a good name--Ronnie thought he needed a scary guard dog name, but Charlie said that would scare his mom--and eventually Charlie decided he was going to be named Poppins, after that weird movie about the magic babysitter that Charlie’s mom liked to watch. 

Ronnie stayed with Poppins while Charlie went to the gas station down the street to get snacks. They walked back to Charlie’s house and made Poppins follow them all the way by dropping snacks for him when he started looking at other stuff, like that story with the fat kids who lived with a witch. 

“Mom, look what I got!” Charlie yelled as soon as they walked in.  
  
“What is it, sweetheart?” Mrs. Kelly asked excitedly as she walked down the stairs. Halfway down, she saw Poppins and froze.

“His name’s Poppins! He loves me and Ronnie!”  
  
Mrs. Kelly started shaking her head and freaking out. She ran back up the stairs, yelling something about getting eaten. Ronnie and Charlie looked at each other, both of them confused. 

Ronnie’s eyes widened. “Does this mean I get to keep him?”  
  
Charlie crossed his arms. “I guess.” He didn’t look happy about it, but Poppins was _his_ now, so who cared? 

He yelled from being too excited, and Charlie pushed him. “Screw you dude, I’m taking _my_ dog home and if you wanna see him, you’ve gotta come visit!” 

And Ronnie left, sticking his tongue out at Charlie. His mom didn’t care if he kept Poppins while his dad was gone, but she said if he told Ronnie to get rid of him then they couldn’t keep him anymore. 

When his dad got home, he just said that if Poppins pissed in the house, he was taking him away for good. His dad said yes, because he was the best and he wanted Ronnie to be happy with two best friends. 

It was a real good summer.

In fourth grade, Uncle Jack moved out of Charlie’s house. Charlie didn’t let Ronnie ask about him. Charlie seemed happy about it though. So Ronnie dropped it.

Two weeks into the school year, Ronnie met a boy named Gabe at recess who was really nice to him and Charlie. He wasn't Ronnie's best friend, obviously, but he was Ronnie and Charlie's friend. They would all three play tag together in the field by the playground. Gabe was in the same lunch as Ronnie and Charlie too, so he started sneaking away from his class' table to sit with them. Ronnie thought Gabe was, like, super cool. Way cooler than the other kids Ronnie knew, except Charlie. 

Gabe said he thought Ronnie and Charlie were really cool too. Ronnie felt his stomach get warm like a girl or something when Gabe said that. Ronnie wasn't...well, he didn't know what it meant but he knew it felt like a secret. So he waited until after school at Charlie's house to talk about it because Charlie would always keep Ronnie's secrets. When Ronnie explained it all, Charlie looked confused.

"I dunno, my mom told me that's kinda how it'll feel when I like a girl. Gabe's not a girl though," Charlie said. A few seconds later, his eyes got wide. "Do you think Gabe's a girl?"

Ronnie wrinkled his nose. "Definitely not, he can't be a girl. That isn't it."

Charlie nodded. "Then maybe you're the girl, dude."

"Ew, no way!" Ronnie shook his head. "Girls are disgusting, Charlie."

"I'm just trying to help! I don’t know, Ronnie. Maybe you just feel how I'm gonna feel about girls, but you feel like that for Gabe."

Ronnie squinted down at his hands. "Maybe. What else did your mom tell you?"

"She said my belly would feel nervous and I would want to hold the girl's hand and spend time with her all the time and hug her and do stuff for her."

Ronnie thought about it. Really thought about it. He thought about holding Gabe's hand and hugging him and hanging out with him after school, and the feeling in his stomach came back. Ronnie nodded. "You can't tell anyone Charlie, okay?"

"Promise!" 

Ronnie felt like Charlie would about girls about Gabe. Whatever that meant. Whatever it was, it was nice. 

Nice enough that he accidentally told one of his friends in his church. He said it was a secret, but his friend asked a priest what it meant. The priest pulled Ronnie aside to tell him about sin. Ronnie went to confession and cried a lot, and the priest agreed not to tell anyone else about the sin Ronnie almost committed. 

After that, thinking about Gabe didn't make him feel nice anymore. His stomach felt like it was twisting in knots instead. When Gabe tried to play with him and Charlie at recess, Ronnie pushed him over and told him to go away. Charlie pulled Ronnie away from Gabe so he didn't get in trouble and asked him why he did that. Ronnie just said he would tell him later. 

When they went back to Charlie's after school, Ronnie explained that he found out Gabe was trying to turn him into a sinner and get him sent to Hell, so they couldn't hang out with him anymore. Charlie looked at him like he was crazy, but he didn't say it. All he said was "Okay, I guess."

So they stopped hanging out with Gabe. Ronnie didn't sin. Charlie didn't tell anyone. They didn’t talk about it again. 

Things went back to normal, just Ronnie and Charlie. The way it should stay forever. They went back to hanging out under the slide at recess together. Ronnie challenged Charlie to eat weird stuff they found under there every day, and Charlie never said no or spit it out. Ronnie would’ve been grossed out by it if he wasn’t so impressed. Charlie said the grossest thing was a cigarette butt because of the burned part and the filter. They had a good thing going on. They didn't need anyone else. 

Except then one day Charlie talked Ronnie into trying to eat a rock (Ronnie got Charlie to eat six that school year) and it made one of Ronnie's loose teeth fall out, so then the teacher told them they weren't allowed to hang out under the slide anymore. They started staying on the swings at recess and throwing mulch at people when nobody was looking instead.

That year was the first time Ronnie went to Charlie's on Christmas. Ronnie's dad said he had important work to do and Ronnie couldn’t be there for it. He didn’t even take Ronnie and his mom to get presents before. Ronnie was so angry he wanted to scream, so he just left like his dad said and screamed once he was all the way down the street where his dad wouldn’t hear. 

He went to Charlie’s because he knew Charlie spent Christmas just with his mom, so they probably finished getting presents super quick, and also he didn’t know where else to go because it was super cold and the cool stores were all closed. 

Charlie looked super excited when he first opened the door, but looked disappointed when he saw it was Ronnie. Ronnie felt his face get hot about that. After his dad kicked him out for the morning, Charlie not being happy to see him felt...bad. 

“Uh, hey Charlie,” he muttered, looking at the ground. “Dad’s working, so he told me I had to go find something to do.”  
  
Charlie shrugged. “I could probably take a break from waiting for Santa if you want.”  
  
Ronnie perked up. “Yeah?” 

“Sure! I mean, I’m not gonna kick you out on Christmas, that’d be messed up.”  
  
Ronnie wasn’t stupid. He knew that was a dig at his dad. He didn't really want to fight with Charlie on Christmas though. “I guess.”  
  
“Mom’s busy right now though, so we can’t really do anything here. Wanna go do something else?”  
  
“Everything’s closed, Charlie. It’s Christmas.”  
  
“Well, we can go look for something to do then!” 

He stepped out of the house and shut the door behind him, so it wasn’t like Ronnie could argue. They just started wandering around looking for anything to do. Eventually, Charlie asked exactly what Ronnie was hoping he wouldn’t.

“So why’d your dad tell you to come over?”  
  
Ronnie huffed. “He had work. He told me to go to my room and not come out until he was done, and I asked about presents and then he started yelling at me.” Ronnie felt himself getting worked up, balled his hands into fists. “Uh, then. Then he told me to get lost for the day.”  
  
He didn’t tell Charlie about the things his dad called him or what he threatened to do if Ronnie didn’t listen. It wasn’t important, and anyway Charlie didn’t even have a dad so he wouldn’t get it. Charlie could still tell something was wrong though. He stopped walking. “I have an idea.”  
  
Ronnie stopped with him. “Okay?”  
  
“Follow me.”  
  
Ronnie almost said he already was doing that, but Charlie got him thinking about his dad again and so he didn’t really want to make someone else angry at him. He followed. 

Next thing Ronnie knew, they were sneaking through a fence to a trainyard. 

“Come on, you’ll feel better if you throw stuff,” Charlie said, gesturing at all the rocks on the ground around them. “I come here to scream sometimes, so I know nobody’s ever here.”

Ronnie felt his eyes get hot from Charlie showing him this place to make him feel better. Instead of thanking Charlie, he picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could. It was close enough. They threw rocks at the ground at first to see if they could make the other rocks fly up in the air, but that got pretty boring once they both got good at it. Ronnie did stop feeling like he wanted to cry and break stuff though. 

It was actually an accident the first time Ronnie threw a rock at one of the trains. He was trying to throw it over the train, but instead it hit it right in the side and made a super loud noise, louder than a gun probably. Him and Charlie didn’t even need to say anything to each other to decide they were going to try to hit the trains the hardest. Ronnie won because he was still kind of angry and he picked up the biggest rock he could, and when he threw it, it actually put a little dent in the metal. Even Charlie couldn’t try to say Ronnie didn’t win after that. 

It was actually a good Christmas. It was fun. It was good. Usually, after presents they went home and Ronnie played with his new toys alone while his mom and dad went to their bedroom. Hanging out with Charlie was even more fun than playing with new toys. They agreed to do it every year after they finished doing presents in the morning, shook on it and everything. 

Christmas break ended eventually, which Ronnie and Charlie were both super mad about. 

They did good enough in their remedial classes fourth grade that they got put back in the regular classes fifth grade. People were meaner in there, or maybe they were just meaner in fifth grade. Charlie got picked on for being stupid, Ronnie got picked on for his name, and they both got picked on for being weird and annoying. 

But it was fine. They were best friends. They didn’t need anyone else. 

Ronnie’s dad got taken away by the police and his mom told him that his dad would be back real soon and the next day someone in his class said his parents must’ve hated him to give him such a stupid name. Ronnie threw a chair at him and got sent to the principal’s office. He got suspended for two days. Charlie didn’t go to school while Ronnie was suspended either because he didn’t want to leave him alone. 

Mrs. Kelly didn’t ask why they weren’t going to school, she just made them breakfast in the mornings and left them alone during the day. Ronnie didn’t want his mom to know he got suspended because she was already worried about his dad, so he left early in the morning like he was going to catch the bus, but he walked to Charlie’s house instead. 

Everybody left Ronnie and Charlie alone for a couple days after they came back to school because they knew he would totally beat someone else up if they didn’t. People mostly forgot about it after less than a month though, and then it started again. 

A month after Christmas break, Charlie got suspended for a week because he bit another boy so hard he bled. Charlie wouldn't tell Ronnie what the boy said no matter how many times he asked, so it probably meant he deserved what Charlie did. 

Ronnie stayed with Charlie the first two days, just like Charlie did. The last three days he did go to school, and it sucked even worse without Charlie. He had to go though, because Charlie had a 72 in ELA and so he couldn't get any zeroes or he'd probably fail. 

He got good at ignoring people. 

He found out Charlie actually wasn't bad at math once he got the hang of it. There were really only ten numbers in a bunch of combinations, so he actually got it down, at least way easier than reading. He got an 81 in math without even needing to copy off Ronnie.

He and Charlie passed the fifth grade, and they were done with elementary school. New school meant new start, even if most of the kids would be the same.

They both agreed that they needed to change their image if they wanted to be cool. Charlie thought they needed a bunch of new clothes, the cool clothes that all the other kids wore, but neither of them really knew what brands were cool. Plus, they didn’t have enough money to get cool clothes, and they knew the cool clothes weren’t at the big stores so it would be a lot harder to just take stuff. So new clothes were out. 

Ronnie thought they needed to get, like, super strong. Nobody could be assholes to them if they were so strong they could just crush anyone. They didn’t really need any money for that either, so they started to try getting ripped. By the end of summer, they could both pick up Charlie’s bed, but neither of them had eight-packs or huge biceps like they were hoping, so it probably wouldn’t scare anybody.

Charlie brought up halfway through summer that Ronnie needed to think of a new name. It didn’t matter how strong he was if everyone thought he was a clown. Ronnie was mad as hell about it because his dad gave him that name for a reason and it was just disrespectful to leave it like that, but. Well. Charlie had a point.

So after two days of not talking to Charlie for bringing it up, Ronnie started brainstorming. They argued for years about who came up with Mac, but one of them did, and they knew it was the most badass name they could come up with.

(They argued about it until tenth grade when they were arguing and Mac pushed Charlie as a joke and Charlie fell off the top of the bleachers. It bruised his ribs, and after that, they promised to never bring it up again. Mac always still believed he was the one who came up with it.)

They spent a week practicing the name, until Charlie and Mac could both introduce him as Mac without having any problem at all.

They got strong, they practiced talking tough, and Ronnie became Mac. They were ready for sixth grade. 

Before first period started, Mac talked to a kid he’d never met before and introduced himself as Mac. It totally worked. But then the dumb stupid idiot teacher made them introduce themselves. 

Mac’s hands were sweaty when it got to his turn. He stood up and cleared his throat. “My name is Mac, and I have a super cool dog that me and my friend Charlie found who’s totally indestructible.” Everyone looked just as impressed by Poppins as they should.

The teacher smiled at him. “Are you sure this is your class? I’m not seeing a Mac on the roster.”  
  
He looked at his desk. “It’s a nickname. I use it instead of my real name.”  
  
“And if you’d rather me call you Mac, I can. I just need your name so I can mark you present.”

He didn’t look up from the desk. “Uh, Ronald.”  
  
“Ronald, oh! Ronald McDonald, I found it.” 

He saw her freeze for a second after she said it, and he heard people whispering. “You can have a seat now, Mac.”

His ears felt hot. So much for a fresh start. Everyone still knew who he was. 

He didn’t have any classes with Charlie either, except for science. 

Sixth grade was shitty. Really shitty. Things didn’t get better, and Mac had to do double the homework now since he and Charlie had different teachers. They barely passed, but they did. Sixth grade sucked and Mac was a dumbass for thinking it wouldn’t, but at least it meant he wasn’t stupid enough to think seventh grade would be awesome.

On the bright side, they saw Terminator for the first time in sixth grade. It was life changing. They both knew that was the only kind of movie that mattered ever. It was totally awesome and badass, and Mac had totally manly and badass dreams about Arnold Schwarzenegger for weeks. 

That summer, after sixth grade ended and they got three months of total freedom, they decided they were going to learn Terminator by heart because what was more badass than that? Nothing. 

Turns out it was harder than they thought it would be to memorize a whole movie when they still had other fun shit to do _and_ Mac had to go home sometimes to feed Poppins. They decided it would be a new tradition to get better at it every summer.

They tried weed for the first time that summer too because Mac’s dad had left some in the kitchen and he was pretty sure nobody would notice a little bit missing. Mac had only seen his dad roll a joint a couple times, so he wasn’t very good at it, but he did a good enough job for it to work, and they stole Mrs. Kelly’s lighter for her candles to light it. 

They decided the smartest idea was to do it in the basement since they were pretty sure Mrs. Kelly wouldn’t notice. Charlie said he huffed glue down there sometimes and she never noticed. Mac didn’t know that people could actually get high from glue, but Charlie seemed like he knew what he was talking about, so they smoked in the basement. 

They ate the whole batch of cookies Mrs. Kelly had made them and didn’t even feel sick from it because they were so hungry. They also laughed a lot for some reason, even at stuff that wasn’t funny. It was pretty sweet. They slept like fourteen hours after and then had to drink a bunch of water because their mouths were super dry, and they decided that weed was dope.

Charlie broke his arm that summer too because he was trying to do cool stunts like Terminator. He thought he could jump off a roof onto a mattress in an alley, but it turned out it was actually a boxspring instead of a mattress. 

Mac was pretty sure Mrs. Kelly almost died from being too worried about Charlie. Like, she was almost scary to be around she was so freaked out. She bubble-wrapped the stairs and everything. Charlie said his mom was just crazy.

He let Mac write stuff on the cast every day, but he said no writing anything that would piss his mom off, so mostly Mac just signed his own name a bunch of times and drew some gnarly looking bugs. 

Charlie got his cast removed a little over a month before seventh grade started, which meant he was lucky because he had enough time to get his arm strong again, but it also meant he couldn't use his cast as a weapon if people were being dicks. At least they got a badass story to tell people out of it.

Seventh grade, Mac tried Adderall for the first time. 

The smart kids used it to work, but the regular stupid kids used it too when they wanted to stay up all night and feel like their brains were buzzing. Mac had only ever tried weed before, and he only barely ever did it. He wanted to try it out and see if it was any fun doing something that didn't just make him relaxed and hungry. 

Only problem was, the Adderall didn’t feel like what everyone else said it was supposed to. It just made his brain stay on one thought longer. It slowed everything down, but not even in a fun way. He didn't feel high, he didn't feel a buzz, he didn't feel shit. All it did was make him finish his math homework in less than an hour for the first time ever. He wasn't one of those dumbass smart kids. He wasn't going to use Adderall to do work. So he just didn't do Adderall anymore. 

Instead, he finally let Charlie talk him into huffing glue with him in his basement. Mac had never done acid, but he was pretty sure it was something like huffing glue. Him and Charlie both got really really weird until they both passed out. Mac was pretty sure that Mrs. Kelly's dirty laundry tried to talk him into climbing into the washing machine at one point, but his body was way too heavy to stand up and walk over there. Charlie started singing at one point, but Mac had no idea what he was saying. It was around the same time as his talk with the laundry. The lines in the room were all blurry and some of them were wavy. It was fucking weird.

Mac didn't remember falling asleep, but when he woke up, him and Charlie were both on the floor of the basement huddled together because it was November and freezing as shit down there. His head felt like it had cotton balls in it. Charlie woke up way easier than Mac when Mac shook his shoulder. It made sense, Charlie did this, like, all the time. 

"Dude, I'm starving," Mac said, his stomach growling to prove his point. 

Charlie sighed and untangled himself from Mac, sitting up slowly. Mac suddenly regretted saying anything because the floor was way too cold without Charlie heating him up. Charlie brought him pop-tarts a minute later though, so it was totally worth being cold. 

Glue high was really weird, but not half bad. They got glue high way more than weed high the rest of junior high because it was a lot cheaper than weed. 

Seventh grade they started learning about variables in math. Charlie was miserable. There were letters in math now. Mac started helping him out with math homework too when it was too much, but Charlie somehow still usually managed it.

Seventh grade pretty much sucked the same as sixth grade, and then during the summer they got even better at Terminator.  
  
Eighth grade though? Sucked way worse for Mac. 

Charlie met a girl in his math class that he was totally in love with. She just started that year so she hadn’t really heard anything about Charlie from other kids. She thought he was sweet or something. Charlie wouldn’t shut the hell up about her. She was totally trying to steal his best friend and then he wouldn’t be able to hang out at Charlie’s house anymore and he wouldn’t have any friends and. And it sucked major balls. 

After a whole month of hearing Charlie talk about this chick, Mac decided to look for her. It wasn’t hard, Charlie had described her to him probably hundreds of times. He found her at her locker before lunch. 

He smiled at her and hoped she couldn’t tell he was about to scare her away for being a friend stealing bitch. “Hey, I’m Mac.”  
  
She smiled at him. “Oh Mac! Charlie told me about you!” So he hadn’t been completely replaced yet. Good.

“Oh, he has?”  
  
“Yeah, you’re his brother or something, right?”  
  
Mac felt so high on the fact Charlie thought of him like a brother that he almost backed out and left it alone. Almost, but really, it was even more reason to make her leave them alone. It would just be selfish of her to do anything that could split him and Charlie up if they were brothers. 

“Something like that, yeah. Look, I’m only telling you this because Charlie’s my brother and I care about him, but you can’t keep making the guy think he’s got a chance with you.”  
  
She looked confused about that. He would have to fix that, she needed to understand. “What? Do you think I’m trying to lead him on or--”  
  
“No, not at all! You seem totally nice, I don’t think you would do something like that.” A little lie or two wouldn’t hurt, just this once. It was important. “It’s just that Charlie’s gross, and once you see that you’re gonna think he’s gross, and that’s really gonna hurt his feelings.”  
  
“All boys our age are gross Mac. I know.”  
  
Mac wrinkled his nose, shook his head. “Other boys challenge Charlie to eat gross stuff all of them are afraid to, and he always does it. I saw him eat a urinal cake once, and he didn’t even have to wash it down with anything. Sometimes he eats dirt for fun. I don’t think he’s ever brushed his teeth without me telling him to. He’s so gross that I couldn’t get on his level if I _tried_ , and he doesn’t even _have_ to try. I respect the hell out of him for it, but I know you probably aren’t into that.”  
  
She did look disgusted. Mac had done his job. “Look, is there any reason for this Mac?”  
  
“Like you said, Charlie’s like my brother. If you’re going to be disgusted by him, I’d rather you figure it out now before he gets his heart broken, y’know?”  
  
She believed him. She left without saying bye to him to go eat lunch with her friends, and the next day Charlie was bummed because she didn’t sit with him in math. Mac felt bad for Charlie a little, but mostly he just felt stoked that his plan worked. 

It only took a week for Charlie to find out. He finally asked her why she stopped talking to him, and she spilled right away. Charlie was pissed. He didn’t let Mac explain himself or anything, and he didn’t even let Mac come to his house for almost two weeks.

Finally, he let Mac come over after school. He didn’t even yell or anything, Mac was pretty sure he’d gotten his yelling done earlier. He still looked pissed though.

“I really liked her,” he said. “Why’d you do it?”  
  
Mac thought for a minute. “It’s like I told her, I knew she was gonna bail at some point. I thought it’d be less shitty if it happened now.”  
  
Charlie started right in on yelling. “ _That’s--_ ” He stopped himself and took a deep breath, and then started back up quieter. “That’s bullshit and you know it dude.”

Mac froze. Then broke. “She was totally trying to replace me! She said she wanted to hang out with you this weekend bro! Weekends are our thing and she was going to ruin it and you were going to ditch me for her! She was trying to ruin everything!”

Charlie didn’t say anything for a while. “I mean, I guess she wasn’t the one anyways, right? Whoever my soulmate is, she won’t think I’m gross. Maybe you saved me a little.”  
  
Mac beamed. “Exactly!”

So things went back to normal. Charlie got a couple more crushes or whatever, but he let them know upfront that he was disgusting, and they always rejected him, so Mac would probably never get replaced. Good. 

Once that was all done with and shit stopped being weird with Charlie and Mac, Mac could start doing their work for school again. 

They passed eighth grade. They finished junior high. They were going to high school.

Summer was a lot of the same, only they'd started trying to memorize Lethal Weapon too. They decided not to overthink the high school thing since it went so bad when they tried in junior high.

They still planned some though. Obviously.

It was another new start. They weren't gonna fuck it up this time. They were gonna find a totally cool, totally badass senior on the first day and figure out a way to impress him so he became their friend and nobody could be dicks to them. 

The answer was easy: Mac would sell him some shit. He'd figured out where he could get some half decent weed to sell and once he made some money, he knew where to get other shit too. His dad dealt in high school too and he was obviously cool as shit back then and he got a lifelong career out of it. Pretty much the best possible outcome as far as Mac was concerned. He never spent more than a couple months at a time in jail either, so that wasn't even really an issue.

They realized the problem with their plan on day one. There was already a drug dealer at the high school that pretty much everyone bought from, not just seniors. So Mac and Charlie had to rethink their strategy. Charlie was the one who thought of the idea. If Mac reported him, he would have to stop and Mac could be the hero who took his place. It was all anonymous or whatever, so nobody would know Mac did it. 

Only someone from their school heard Mac using the payphone at the gas station down the street from the school to call the office. He went right after school so he didn't forget, but all the people who drove to school went there too. So everyone found out he did it, and Ronnie the Rat was born. He gave Charlie a black eye for it, but Charlie apologized, so Mac was only pissed at him for the first couple days. At least it was a name Mac had done something to get. At least people stopped making it about his dad. 

Plus, it sort of worked still. Mac did get to be the school's new drug dealer, and since he was a freshman it meant he had plenty of time to build his business before he graduated. Charlie played a key part, of course. His job was to hide the drugs at his house since Mac's dad was a great businessman who would take Mac's stash to sell if he found it, and he also had to stand guard and look threatening when Mac was selling to people bigger than him. Charlie was shorter than him, obviously, but everyone thought he was probably out of his mind enough to kill someone. They had a real good thing going for them. 

Mac got some respect from it too. People were less dickish to him than they were in middle school because they knew he would tell the school to drug test them if they crossed a line. The worst that really happened was Charlie had to eat weird shit, but he didn’t really seem to care all that much since he did that with Mac already. Some of the people who didn’t buy from him were still dicks, but it was better than it used to be for sure.

Their business was how they met Dennis Reynolds. They'd heard stories about him, but he’d gone to a different middle school than them, and he only hung out with upperclassmen. It was the beginning of their second semester of high school the first time he bought from them. He bought weed, but he also bought a shitload of Adderall and Xanax. He barely said anything to them, just handed Mac his money and said "Thanks, Rat."

The next few times he bought from them was pretty much the same. He bought weed every couple weeks. They could never guess when he was gonna buy pills though. Sometimes he was asking for more after a week or two, sometimes it was more than a month. He was one of their customers they usually talked and shit with after selling, and he was fucking weird sometimes (usually when he needed more Xanax), but it wasn’t like that was a downside to Mac and Charlie. 

It wasn't like it was a secret or anything that Mac and Charlie snuck under the bleachers to smoke during lunch while they ate, but they were still surprised when Dennis showed up out of nowhere there. He usually handed one of them a note or sent a friend to tell Mac and Charlie he wanted to buy beforehand. Mac and Charlie looked at each other, and Mac could see that Charlie was confused too.

"You need something?" Mac asked. Might as well.

Dennis rolled his eyes. "I didn't know you idiots came out here for lunch. I was sick of the cafeteria."

(Something Mac and Charlie knew about Dennis Reynolds that few other people did: he wasn't always good at lying to people.)

Even though they knew he was lying, they knew they shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He sat with them almost every day for lunch after that. Dennis insisted they weren't friends for a while. He told Mac and Charlie that he only sat with them because they let him smoke with them without paying for it. 

He gave them his phone number at the end of the school year though. He was excited to brag about the fact that his parents gave him his own phone for his bedroom and his stupid sister had to use the phone in the kitchen. 

Mac and Charlie didn't call for the first few weeks of summer, actually. For starters, they were too busy getting high in Charlie's basement. They had to get classy high with Dennis. He wouldn't just huff glue or spraypaint with them. Plus, they had their own traditions every summer, just the two of them. 

Like the first week of summer, they spent the whole week watching their favorite movies because they decided they wanted to memorize them before they graduated. They were doing pretty fucking good too. They already memorized the first hour of Ghostbusters, all of Terminator, and almost half of Alien. They were still shitty at Lethal Weapon, but they memorized more of those three than anyone else in the world probably. 

The second week of summer, they tried to spend the night in a different store every night and see if anyone kicked them out. They figured out that if they hid behind the big bags of dog food then nobody would notice. Sometimes they came out too soon though and the janitors saw them and called the cops. Also, a couple stores had real security and saw them on the cameras and called the cops. They still got it right a couple times though and spent the night taking the security tags off as much shit as they could carry, then putting all of it into grocery bags and walking right out the front door like a regular customer after the store opened. They were pretty much geniuses. 

Usually, they spent the third week of summer at the diving pool, but Jamie Nelson drowned the summer before that and so that was out. Plus, the public pool was way too shallow to be any fun. Even the deep end wasn't hard to reach, they barely had to go under the water. 

Since that tradition wasn't possible, they called Dennis. He actually invited them to his house. He said it was just him and his sister home so they could do whatever they wanted, and he told them how to get there. He sounded happy to hear from them. It was weird. He’d let slip that his parents had a whole wine cellar though, so obviously they went. 

When they knocked on the door, a woman who was too old and too ugly to be Dennis’ mom opened it for them.  
  
“Uh, we’re Dennis’ friends,” Mac said, looking over her shoulder to see if he could see Dennis. Dennis’ house was super fucking nice and super big, so obviously Dennis was probably nowhere near the front door. “He told us we could come over.”  
  
She let them in without any questions. “His bedroom is upstairs. Third door on the right.”  
  
They went straight up, not wanting to talk to whoever that woman was more than they had to. 

Dennis was laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were open, and he was breathing, but other than that he wasn’t moving at all. He didn’t seem to notice them walk in. Mac and Charlie looked at each other, then back at Dennis. 

“Hey dude,” Charlie said after a few more seconds waiting to see if Dennis noticed them. 

Dennis immediately sat up smoothly, smiled at Mac and Charlie. “Hey, how’d you guys get up here?”

And just like that, Dennis was normal again. And, well, Mac and Charlie had weird moments too sometimes, so they left it alone. 

“Some chick let us in and told us which room was yours,” Mac told him, shrugging. 

“Ah, that would be our new housekeeper. The old one knew to let me know when I have company, but she’s still figuring it out I guess.”

A _housekeeper._ He knew Dennis was rich, but that was, like, a whole other level of rich. Charlie’s eyes got big enough that Mac was pretty sure he was thinking the same thing.

“What, uh--what happened to the old one?” Charlie asked. He’d been into mystery movies recently, so he probably already had a story in his head about her being killed by Dennis’ dad or something.

Dennis shrugged. “Dee got pissed at her and ripped out a chunk of her hair, so she quit.”

“She did _what?_ ” Mac asked. If the housekeeper did something to deserve it, that was totally badass, but if not then Dee was probably as much of a bitch as Dennis liked to say she was. 

Dennis looked a little uncomfortable. “It’s not a big deal, alright? It was more than a month ago, who cares? Do you guys wanna get drunk or not?”  
  
Charlie grinned. “Hell yeah we do, dude.”  
  
Dennis slid off his bed. He was smiling again. “Be right back.” 

Once he was gone, Charlie turned to face Mac. “He’s totally the one who ripped out her hair, right?”  
  
Mac nodded, eyes wide. “Totally, yeah. Why’d he do it though?”  
  
Charlie shrugged. “Dude’s weird, Mac. Makes him a good fit for us though.”  
  
Mac squinted. “How?”  
  
“Remember when you kicked that movie theater guy right in the balls because he caught us sneaking in? Or when I bit that security guard who caught us stealing shit at the mall that one day? Obviously Dennis fits if he can do cool shit like that _and_ steal alcohol from his parents.”  
  
Charlie made some good points. It was still...it had always just been him and Charlie. He was fine hanging out with Dennis sometimes, but he was definitely not looking for a second best friend. 

Dennis’ parents did have good alcohol though. He brought them two bottles of wine, which was a girly drink but at least it did its job. Dennis was fun to drink with, even if Mac and Charlie couldn’t get him to tell them why he pulled out the housekeeper’s hair after he caved and told them he did it. 

Dee showed up in Dennis’ room at some point, and they yelled at each other for awhile but eventually Dennis let her drink with them. He looked at Mac and Charlie like he was apologizing for her being there. They shrugged to accept the apology. 

She was annoying, but so were all girls really. She wasn’t worse than normal though, even though her back brace was really gross to look at and she and Dennis argued a bunch. When she started trying to explain the play the school was putting on that year, Dennis finally kicked her out. 

“Sorry, she’s so goddamn annoying,” Dennis said once she was gone. 

“Well you’re twins, so like, one of you had to be the annoying one.” Mac was a little drunk, but he was still pretty sure that was how twins worked. 

Dennis wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think there’s any science behind that, Ronnie.”  
  
Mac shook his head. “First of all, it’s Mac or we don’t drink with you anymore. Second, no it’s not science because it’s fact. Obviously.”  
  
“Okay, Mac. All science is fact. That’s the whole point of it.”  
  
Mac opened his mouth to argue, but Charlie cut him off before he could even get started.

“If you start arguing about science I’m going to stab myself in the neck with a bottle, I swear to God! It’s summer, so let’s just. Not.”

Dennis looked warily at Charlie, like he couldn’t tell whether Charlie was being serious, but Mac just rolled his eyes. Less than a week before, he’d threatened to jump off the roof because he couldn’t find one of his socks. 

They stopped arguing about science though.

Dennis was better over summer because he didn’t really talk about his popular friends at school. He did call himself a king a few times, which was weird, but that was just Dennis. Eventually, Mac and Charlie got totally used to how full of himself he was. 

By the end of summer, Dennis was totally Mac and Charlie’s second best friend. Like, Mac and Charlie had the whole brothers-for-life thing going for them that Dennis would never totally get, but he was actually their friend for real by sophomore year. 

Honestly, high school mostly stayed the same. They weren’t the youngest kids there anymore, but not much changed. Mac and Charlie passed mostly by cheating however they could, Mac kept making enough money to help his mom with the bills and still have fun, Charlie and him still spent all their time together. The only real difference was now Dennis was there too most of the time. 

Sometimes, Dennis was almost nice. Sometimes he was just quiet. Sometimes he had an even bigger head than usual and would spend all of lunch talking about how he was God’s gift to Earth (Dennis’ words, Mac wouldn’t blaspheme like that even to make fun of Dennis). Sophomore year, Mac and Charlie followed Dennis to the library one day and Dennis screamed at them until Mac half thought he was going to murder them, then he didn’t talk to them for a month.

After that, he started sitting with them during lunch again. Mac and Charlie didn’t apologize, and neither did Dennis. They just didn’t talk about it, and everything went back to normal pretty much right away. 

It was a weird month because Mac and Charlie both thought they should maybe do something, but they didn’t know what would piss Dennis off even more. It was also weird that they couldn’t just show up at his place when they ran out of ideas for shit to do together. They huffed a lot of glue in Charlie’s basement. Dennis said he had standards or something, so they’d been cutting back since he started hanging out with them more. 

But then that month ended, and things went back to normal. 

The rest of sophomore year was fine. Junior year was annoying as shit because Dennis started dating Maureen Ponderosa and he wouldn’t shut up about her. 

Mac and Charlie stopped hanging out with him unless he came over without Maureen, so basically they stopped hanging out with him until he broke up with her. They huffed glue, they watched their favorite movies, they made each other eat weird shit, and pretty much just had a great time. 

Also, they both passed that grading period even though they only saw Dennis four times, so they didn’t even really need him basically. He was a dick and they didn’t even care anymore. (Him and Charlie were both maybe a little pissed that he’d ditched them for some weird gross girl.) 

He did break up with Maureen though, three months after they started dating. Dennis wouldn’t tell them why though. All they could get out of him was that he couldn’t do it anymore. They were used to Dennis being vague about shit like that, and anyways things went pretty much back to normal after that, so Mac and Charlie didn’t give that much of a shit. 

The rest of junior year went normally. Charlie did pretty fucking bad in math because there were a ton of letters now. He’d finally gotten used to using x, but now there were other letters too and he got too confused. He’d still passed it somehow, but he and Mac agreed that Charlie should start copying his math work in senior year. 

Summer was good. Some of their traditions they still did, obviously, like movie week. They told Dennis that was their thing and he wouldn’t get it, plus they’d started bringing the glue in to see if it made them remember the movies better since they’d already memorized them so good sober. They found out pretty quick that the glue definitely didn’t make it easier, but they still tried. 

They agreed to let Dennis join in on their store sleeping week that year as long as he wasn’t a pussy about maybe getting arrested though. Turns out he wasn’t bad at it, mostly because he was skinny enough that he could fit down inside the metal trash cans they sold that had lids. Charlie was short enough, but the one time he tried his knees got stuck. Dennis was, like, boney at the end of junior year. 

Mac and Charlie stuck to hiding behind the dog food because they knew it worked, and by the end of the week they got more than $1,000 of shit. Mac even got his mom a new coffee pot since his dad smashed the old one. They only got caught the third night because Dennis’ hip started to cramp ten minutes to closing so he tried to readjust, but he knocked over the trash can and an employee heard. He ratted out Mac and Charlie like a bitch, and they almost didn’t let him come the rest of the week because bitches weren’t allowed, but he was the only one with a car. 

The rest of summer, they spent most of their time drinking and getting high. Sometimes Dennis planned for college because he was rich, but he still let Mac and Charlie drink his parents’ booze while he did. 

When senior year started, Mac was fucking thriving. He was a senior _and_ the only major dealer in their school, so he was making more money than ever. He bought himself a good, sturdy pair of combat boots that were both badass and long-lasting, and he got Charlie the weird green jacket with patches all over it that he looked at every time he saw it in the window of the store by Charlie’s house.Charlie swore he would never take it off, and honestly, Mac believed him. He was pretty sure Charlie had never done laundry ever. He didn’t get Dennis anything because Dennis was rich as shit and he could just swipe one of his parents’ credit cards if he wanted something. 

Also Dennis got accepted to UPenn in early admission so. Dicks who left them didn’t get presents with Mac’s hard earned money. 

Other than Dennis being a dick like always though, senior year was pretty sweet. Nobody could be dicks to them except people in their own grade, and even they couldn’t do much since Mac had a monopoly on drug dealing. It was shaping up to be the best year of school for Charlie and Mac ever. 

Their first semester was totally badass and great, but it ended. Christmas break started. Things went bad, and a fucking week before Christmas, his dad got arrested, and he looked pissed off enough that Mac knew this one was a big deal. A week before Christmas. The day after their winter break started, he watched some fucking cops take his dad away in handcuffs. He was supposed to meet Dennis and Charlie to go get drunk from Dennis' parents' liquor cabinet and celebrate the start of their break. Instead, he had to clean up after his mom broke half the dishes in the kitchen screaming about his dad being a piece of shit. So he didn't show. 

Charlie and Dennis showed up at his house. He answered the door and they started calling him an asshole for forgetting he was supposed to go to Dennis' house, but. Well, they either saw something on Mac's face or the glass that was scattered everywhere. Either way, they stopped talking. 

"You need help cleaning up, man?" Charlie asked. 

Mac sighed, but he let them in. "My mom's probably sleeping. If either of you dickheads wake her up I won't stop her from fucking killing you both."

Dennis' eyebrows shot up and he looked at the closed door of her bedroom, but he didn't say anything. 

They worked in silence. Charlie picked up the big shards because he was somehow impossible to hurt so he wasn't worried about slicing his hand open. Mac swept up the smaller shards, and Dennis held the dustpan. They finished a hell of a lot quicker than Mac could've by himself. Mac put the broom up, and when he looked back, Charlie and Dennis both looked uncomfortable. 

"So, uh. Do you still want to come over?" Dennis asked, arms folded across his chest.

Mac took his time to answer. "My mom wants to be alone, I think."

"I drove us here. You can pick the music if you want," Dennis offered. 

Mac's chest hurt. Dennis never let anyone else pick the music. "Okay, sweet. Yeah."

Dennis' house wasn't even all that far of a drive, but it was still so much more fancy than all the houses in Mac's neighborhood it was insane. He thought long and hard about the houses so he couldn't think about his dad. Mac was the first one out of the car. He didn't like feeling cooped up, especially not when he felt like shit already. It made him want to crawl out of his skin to find some way to breathe. 

"Dee's with some of her theater friends or something, so we've got the place to ourselves," Dennis said, heading straight for the booze. "You guys can go ahead and go to my room if you want, I'll be there in a minute."

Good. Mac didn't need anyone else there. If Dee said something stupid or barged into Dennis' room, Mac would've broken her disgusting back brace.

Mac and Charlie did what they were told and went to Dennis' room. It was a really nice room. Big windows and a soft bed and a bathroom attached. Far enough from the other bedrooms he could do basically whatever he wanted without anyone knowing. It was almost as good as Charlie's basement to hang out in. Almost, but they couldn't smoke in Dennis' room because the window faced the street so they couldn't smoke out of it, but they also couldn't do it with the window shut because Dennis didn't want the smell there later. 

They could sure as hell drink though. Dennis grabbed two bottles, one scotch and one tequila. He said he wasn't sure what kind of drunk they wanted to get. He looked at Mac. "Up to you, dude. What kind of mood are you looking for?"

The tequila wouldn't remind him that the lump in his throat was because he felt like a ticking bomb. He grabbed the bottle out of Dennis' hand and drank until it burned too much to keep going, then he held it out for whoever wanted next. At some point Dennis and Charlie had started to cheer him on. Charlie took the bottle next. They passed it around until the bottle was empty and they were so drunk they could barely see anymore. It felt really good. Mac didn't even want to cry. Why would he? He was with his two best friends and they were having a great time. Mac was having a great time. 

Then he woke up. He didn't know what time it was, but it was light outside. All three of them were in Dennis’ bed, and Dennis was hogging all the blankets. The clock on Dennis' bedside table said it was just after eleven in the morning. They started drinking around four in the afternoon and everything after that was either blurry or completely lost to Mac. He sat up and stretched, bleary-eyed but hangover free. Thank God for tequila. 

They were all sprawled across the bed, and Mac really had no idea what happened after the first hour or so but he was willing to bet real money they just passed out there. 

The more he woke up, the more he remembered about the day before. About his day before the tequila. About why Dennis let him pick what they drank in the first place. His stomach formed a hard pit inside him. He felt sick, and it definitely had nothing to do with the booze. His dad was in trouble. Probably for real this time. He left Mac and his mom again. 

Mac climbed clumsily out of the bed, shaking violently. Fucking stupid. He was sandwiched between Dennis and Charlie and it was making his throat swell shut and he needed space. He was halfway across the room, on his way to go pace and cry in Dennis' bathroom until he calmed down, when Dennis sat up in bed.

"Mac? What are you doing?"

Mac shook his head. "Doesn't matter, just go to sleep. I need to piss."

Dennis squinted at him, still obviously half-asleep. "Dude, you look like you’re about to cry or some shit. What's up?"

Mac hated Dennis a little when he did this. He just dug and dug, shoving a finger into Mac's exposed wounds until he finally cracked. 

"Goddammit Den, I said it doesn't matter, okay? Just fucking drop it."

He couldn't tell if he was yelling. He couldn't walk to the bathroom either. He was stuck there. He was trapped. He was in Hell and that's why his dad was going to jail and. And Charlie was waking up too, and Mac couldn't breathe. 

Charlie almost never woke up quick or easy, but he was out of bed as soon as he was awake enough to see Mac. He walked up to Mac slowly, and Mac felt so much like the goddamn stray dogs that bit strangers that he almost didn't blame him. Charlie raised his arms once he was close, waiting for Mac, and Mac collapsed into it. Charlie hugged him loosely so Mac could still breathe, and he let Mac squeeze as tight as he needed to. And then Mac cried and he probably bruised the shit out of Charlie’s arms because he couldn’t unclench his muscles. He didn't know how long he cried for, but Charlie stood there with him through it. 

After Mac could breathe again and the burning in his chest just turned into a bone-deep ache, Charlie pulled back the slightest bit. "Do you want to tell us about it or get breakfast?"

And then Mac remembered that Dennis was there for the whole thing. Dennis saw him lose it like some kind of fucking psycho. Dennis was still waiting on the bed looking like a deer caught in headlights like he was waiting for someone to either give him instructions or start screaming. 

"I need water," Mac said. His throat always felt raw and dry after he freaked out like that.

Dennis basically jumped out of bed. "I'll get it."

Charlie walked with Mac back to the bed and sat him down. 

"Do you want a blanket on you?" Mac shook his head no. 

"Want me to sit next to you?" Mac nodded. 

"Do you want Dennis to sit on your other side?" Mac thought about it before he nodded. 

Charlie climbed into bed next to Mac, leaving some space between them so Mac could breathe. "That one was bad, Mac."

Mac rolled his eyes. "No shit."

Dennis came back with the water before Charlie could call Mac out on being a dick. He downed almost the full glass at once, and Charlie gestured for Dennis to sit with them. 

"So did you want to tell us what happened?" Charlie asked. 

Mac sighed. He didn't say anything for a long few seconds. He didn't know how to, really. Eventually he just did. "My dad got arrested. It seemed bad this time. I don't know what's gonna happen to him."

Charlie blew out a breath. "Shit. He didn't tell you anything?"

Mac shrugged, shaking his head. "All I know is my mom is, like, super pissed about whatever it was. That's why she started breaking shit yesterday."

"I mean, it could just be drugs again, right?" Dennis asked. 

"They've got all these new laws and shit with that too though for repeat offenders. He's got a ton of priors or whatever, so they'll lock him up longer for it. Some dudes are getting life for drugs now," Mac explained. "I don’t think my mom would’ve been so pissed if it was just drugs though. Y’know? She’s used to that. I'm fucking worried about this. Like, for real worried."

"My dad knows a lot of lawyers," Dennis offered. 

Charlie shook his head. "Mac's dad isn't gonna take your dad's lawyers. He thinks he's, like, above having to pay for lawyers or something like that."

"Charlie's right. My dad won't pay for something he can get for free."

And none of them really knew what to say to that. Dennis left a few minutes later to get them breakfast because Mac’s stomach started growling. 

Charlie put an arm around his shoulder. “It’ll be alright, dude. Your dad always finds some way out of this shit.”  
  
And it was for awhile. Ronnie the Rat made good fucking money senior year. He spent, like, all his free time with Charlie and Dennis. He was actually passing his classes. Things were...well, they were okay. 

And then his dad’s trial happened. And then his dad got convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. And then Mac knew why his mom was so pissed, because his dad had told them nobody was getting hurt. And then Mac found out his dad was going to be in prison for twenty-five to life. And then senior year was really fucking bad. 

He didn’t remember most of it honestly. He passed his classes somehow. He was pretty sure that was on Dennis. He didn’t off himself, on purpose or accidentally. He was pretty sure that was on Charlie. Sometimes, Mac would get high and then it had been a week and he’d been so fucked up the whole week he didn’t remember any of it. 

He remembered prom though. Charlie and Dennis didn’t let him get wasted before because they said he should remember prom or something stupid like that. Charlie didn’t come because he said the lights at dances freaked him out. Charlie was just fucking weird like that sometimes, so they dropped it. Him and Dennis still went because Dennis actually had a date and Mac wanted to sell to people. Dennis ditched him pretty much immediately for his popular friends, but the night was still actually pretty good at first.

A ton of people wanted to buy ecstasy off Mac, which he’d prepared for. He made $400 that night, more than enough to make up for how expensive a ticket was. Someone spiked the punch, and Mac was almost surprised it wasn’t him. Whoever did it, people got wasted. 

Things slowed down eventually though. Most of Mac’s customers had already bought off him, so he wasn’t getting much business anymore, and Dennis had barely talked to him since they got there. It started to fucking suck. 

He needed some air. He just needed to go outside for a few minutes. He needed to get wasted, but Charlie made him leave his flask at Dennis’ place. He needed a fucking joint so his shoulders would stop feeling so tense and his jaw would unclench. He’d barely taken his second hit when he felt a hand on his elbow. He tried not to flinch because the hand was definitely not Dennis’.

It was Dennis’ prom date though, whatever the fuck her name was. Mac couldn’t remember if Dennis had mentioned it. She smiled at him. “I lost Dennis earlier and I saw you come out here. I didn’t want to stay in there alone. Thought you could probably use some company too.”  
  
Mac nodded. Handed her the joint. He’d made enough money that night that he wasn’t too worried about sharing a joint with Dennis’ prom date. Her eyes fluttered when she took a hit, and she kept one hand on his elbow. She passed it back to him and stared right at his mouth when he closed his lips around the joint. 

And Mac. Well. He wasn’t stupid enough not to know what that meant. She wasn’t Mac’s type--a voice in the back of his mind that sounded too much like his priest sneered, and what _was_ his type then?--but she could probably get him to stop fucking thinking about prison and the fact his mom barely looked at him anymore. 

They passed the joint between each other a few more times. Mac flicked the roach onto the concrete and looked at her. She kissed him. He kissed back and pretended he felt something about it. She reached a hand down and palmed him through his pants. 

“My car’s in the parking lot,” she whispered. She was clearly trying to sound sexy, and it probably would’ve been sexy to most guys, but she just. Wasn’t Mac’s type. He still nodded and followed her to her car. 

He told Charlie the next day. Apparently Tim Murphy had made Charlie eat something that had actually made him puke a couple days before prom, so they agreed to let him take the blame if Dennis ever found out somebody banged his prom date since he was a dick. Charlie was still the best at keeping secrets.

And then it was graduation. Mac actually graduated high school, and so did Charlie. Dennis too, but nobody was surprised about that. Mac’s mom actually showed up, and it even looked like she was looking when he walked the stage. Mac wasn’t some loser that gave a shit about school or whatever, but it felt good. 

They spent most of the summer over at Dennis’ since he was leaving in August. Mac and Charlie still did movie week because it wasn’t like they could just abandon their tradition, but other than that, they hung out with Dennis a lot. 

He said they were being dramatic because he was going to visit when he could anyway, but he still didn’t tell them to leave him alone once. Mostly they did what they always did, and they all avoided talking about the fact Dennis was leaving until the week before he left when he had to start packing. 

They helped him and Dee pack. Obviously. They were great friends and Dennis didn’t deserve them. He was bitchy the whole time about organization or whatever, so mostly they just folded stuff and helped him carry boxes out to his car. Mac and Charlie rode out with him and Dee because their parents were out of town and Dennis promised to pay their cab fare for the ride home. 

Dee couldn’t carry boxes, like, at all since she still needed her back brace for another year, so Mac and Charlie had to do all the work for her. She only thanked them once for it, which was just rude in Mac and Charlie’s opinion because she totally should’ve been more grateful, but at least they had more time to hang out with Dennis since she ditched them pretty quick after all her shit was in her room.

They stayed until Dennis had unpacked everything. He didn’t let them help with that part because he said he didn’t trust them not to put something in a weird place he’d never find it again. Dennis seemed excited about college. Mac didn’t get it, and he was pretty sure Charlie didn’t either, but it was cool seeing Dennis actually excited about something at least.

Dennis didn’t apply for housing early enough to get a single dorm, so they had to leave after his roommate showed up. Well, they didn’t have to, but they didn’t want to meet Dennis’ dumbass roommate when there was no way he’d be cool enough for them.

Dennis gave them way more than the needed for cab money so they could get something to eat too. When they asked why, he just shrugged. “You guys probably got pretty hungry carrying all those boxes. I’d be a dick if I didn’t give you dinner money.” 

Dennis _was_ a dick though, so that didn’t make it any less confusing. Dennis was always confusing though, and they were hungry, so they took the money. 

They weren’t sad about Dennis leaving, because again, he was a dick, but it was weird not having him around. He’d only been friends with them a couple years or whatever, but he’d wormed his way into their group until they were totally used to having him around.

They visited him three times his first year, but after that he joined a frat and told them not to come visit because the other guys wouldn't understand Mac and Charlie. They only saw him in person during the summer for the rest of the time he was in college, but at least that was pretty fucking sweet ince they all turned twenty-one because they didn't have to find bars that were lazy enough not to notice their IDs were fake. Dennis did actually call them once a week like he promised he would except for when finals were coming up, so he didn't completely ditch them for his cool stupid smart college friends.

Mac and Charlie both got jobs after they graduated too, sort of. Mac kept dealing because he might as well, he already had enough customers to pay the bills without even selling crack or anything else that'd get him stabbed. Charlie took any odd jobs he could find because he said it was the most honorable way a man could make a living. 

When they hung out, which was still pretty much all the time, they'd tell each other about the weirdest shit that happened to them since the last time they saw each other. Mac's weirdest story was about the guy who bought oxy off him every couple weeks and, every time he did, made his chihuahua sniff the bag of pills before he gave Mac the money because he swore the dog could tell if the pills were good or not. He bought it every time. Charlie's weirdest was a chick who asked him to clean her gutters out for her and stood in her backyard completely naked and watched him the whole time. Apparently she was still totally polite the whole time and gave him his money when he was done like it was normal. 

So basically, they were making adulthood their bitch. They were making money, they were partying together like always, and they were doing whatever the fuck they wanted. Totally better than Dennis, who decided to do four more years of school like a dumbass.

Charlie moved out of his mom’s when he was twenty because he made enough to get a shitty gross apartment that he said was perfect. He was way excited to live on his own, and he and Mac hung out in his apartment all the time. They didn’t even try to be sneaky about smoking weed together anymore because Mrs. Kelly wasn’t there to freak out and say it was going to turn their brains into scrambled eggs like she did when she caught them in the basement. 

Mac didn’t move out even though he could’ve afforded to. He told Charlie it was because he didn’t want to ditch his mom, but really he just thought he’d get bored as shit living alone. He and Charlie had talked about living together for awhile during high school, but Charlie decided it wouldn’t work out. He said Mac would annoy the shit out of him when he tried to boss Charlie around, which Mac thought was totally unfair and stupid of Charlie, but he knew Charlie would be disgusting and dirty and Mac hated dirty places so it probably was for the best.

Things worked out in the end though, when Dennis came back from college. He decided he didn’t want to be a veterinarian for some reason, and he seemed lost. He wasn’t acting like Dennis. Charlie said Mac should live with him so he didn’t move somewhere by himself and then kill himself or something like that. 

Mac brought it up to Dennis a couple weeks after Charlie suggested it, because honestly it was a pretty good idea and living alone with his mom when she still barely talked to him was starting to feel like shit. They were at Mac's house smoking in his bed when Mac popped the question. Since Dennis had been back, he got all affectionate and shit when he was stoned and Mac refused to think about why that made his throat close up. He was slumped down with his head on Mac's shoulder, and he'd tangled their legs together. He wasn't asleep, but he was more relaxed than Mac had seen him in weeks.

"I was thinking," Mac started.

Dennis hummed. "That's a bad sign."

"Shut up, dick." Mac pinched Dennis' hand, because he was a dick and he deserved it. "You're looking for an apartment, right?"

Dennis nodded. 

"Well, my credit is nonexistent bro, but I still make money. So I was thinking about it, and wouldn't it make sense for us to live together? You're over here all the time anyway." Mac hadn't been to Dennis' house since he came back. Dee got home from the psych ward a couple months before Dennis graduated and she still didn’t want company.

Dennis agreed immediately. Like, right when Mac asked. Before Mac even told him he could take time to think about it. It wasn't until they went and looked at an apartment together the first time that Dennis asked about Charlie, and he seemed even more pumped to live together when he knew Charlie was okay with it.

They found a perfect apartment. The only downside was that the only bathroom was in Dennis' bedroom, but there was only two of them so it wasn't a big deal (at least, until makeup became an everyday thing for Dennis instead of a special occasion thing and his morning routine went from twenty minutes to an hour). 

Things were good, but they were definitely different. It wasn’t like Charlie was sad about it or anything, obviously, but it was just different with the three of them. Even more once they got the bar.

Mac and Charlie were still best friends, still brothers for life, but Mac started to have routines and traditions with Dennis too. Him and Charlie were less inseparable than they were growing up. Once Frank showed up, they hung out alone even less. 

Some things never changed though. They still told each other (almost) all their secrets, they still watched the Terminator movies together and reenacted the whole thing while it was happening, and they still had Christmas, at least for awhile. When the rest of the gang started joining them at Christmas, it didn't feel like as much of a loss as Mac thought it would. It felt natural. They were all friends now (even Dee, but Mac would kill himself before he told her that).

He went from having one best friend to three best friends and Frank. It was pretty good, even if they were all dicks. Charlie was still his first ever best friend though. He was always gonna be the one Mac trusted more than, like, anyone in the world. 

The only thing he didn't tell Charlie before anyone else that actually mattered was the biggest thing, the one he didn't tell anyone for forty years. Technically it was the second time he'd said it, but it was the first time it mattered. 

Charlie had still been the only one Mac made eye contact with when he finally said, "I'm gay," and kept it out there. Charlie smiled when he said it, and Mac could breathe for the first time in his life.

He went home, because he was giddy and tired and he needed some time to convince himself he'd actually done that. He could wait one day to cash the lotto ticket and figure out how to live as a gay man. He had the rest of his life. It felt good, better than he ever thought being gay could feel.

Charlie texted him almost as soon as he got home. He sent a thumbs-up, a rainbow, and a heart. Mac was never as good at emojis as Dennis or Charlie, but he knew what that meant.

_Good job finally coming out. Love you bro._

Mac sent a heart back. 

When Dennis got home an hour later, he walked right into Mac's room. "I, uh--I'm happy for you, man. I mean, took you long enough but. Good for you."

Mac smiled wide at Dennis. "Thanks Dennis. It _feels_ good." 

Dennis nodded, smiled tightly at Mac, then went back to his own room. It was weird, but Dennis had been way more pissed off than usual lately, and Mac knew that was him trying the best he could. It made his chest feel warm.

He realized he was in love with Dennis after everything on Valentine's Day. They went home, and once the others weren't there and they were alone in the safety of their apartment, Dennis hugged Mac. A real hug, tight and warm, with his head buried in Mac's neck. Mac was pretty sure he could stay like that for the rest of his life and he would die happy. 

Dennis held onto him for well over a minute, and when he pulled back Mac was pretty sure he'd been crying. He'd started wearing waterproof mascara the past couple years, but his eyes were still a little too red to brush off.

"It really was perfect Mac. Thank you. For...all of it."

He squeezed Mac's arm one more time, and then he went to his room. He hated when anyone saw him emotional like that. He still wanted to say something nice to Mac before he left. The feeling in Mac's chest at the realization was one he would give anything and everything to feel again. 

He knew he had to tell Charlie. Not right away though. He wanted to be sure. Or, well, sure it wouldn't go away at least, because the way Mac felt when Dennis started getting out of bed earlier to make their morning coffees instead of Mac just because he wanted to make Mac feel good after Valentine's Day (not that Dennis would ever actually say that to Mac) didn't exactly leave any room to doubt what it was he was feeling.

He didn't tell Charlie until after Dennis ran away to fucking North Dakota because he wanted to be a better person or some stupid shit like that all of a sudden. He was in really bad shape. Charlie slept on the couch in Mac and...in Mac's apartment for the first two months Dennis was gone because he was convinced that Mac would either kill himself or get on a plane to North Dakota if he didn't, and honestly Mac couldn't blame him. 

The first two weeks, Mac was in denial, and after that he broke. Charlie would let Mac hold onto him tight enough to leave bruises when he couldn't stop shaking and he was crying so hard he couldn't breathe, just like when they were kids. A lot of it felt like when they were kids. They didn't have their second best friend for starters. 

When Mac told Charlie he was in love with Dennis, Charlie only froze for a second. He rubbed Mac's back soothingly. "I know you are, dude."

It surprised Mac enough to calm him down a little. "How?"

Charlie laughed at that. "Mac, seriously, what kind of best friend would I be if I couldn't tell? Plus, you bought him a crazy expensive Valentine's present. You don't do that for your bro. Like, you definitely wouldn't have done that for me."

Mac shrugged. He didn't know what else to do.

Charlie pulled Mac in closer to him, and Mac took the permission to sag forward against Charlie's chest. Charlie had always been smaller than him, but Mac still needed him to do this sometimes, just to let himself feel secure. Charlie never complained about it.

"Why him though man? Like, Dennis sucks. Especially the past couple years. I know you can't control the gay thing, but _Dennis_?" He sounded actually confused, almost like he thought Mac was better than that.

Mac sighed. Shrugged again. "It's just like--he's everything, you know? Like, I know he's a bitch all the time or whatever, and when he's not having feelings he acts like he hates me but it's...he's not really like that. And then when he's good, it's like. Things are really good. I don't know Charlie. He's just. He's it."

It was the longest he'd talked about Dennis without crying since after the first two weeks. It felt good, almost, getting that off his chest. 

Charlie nodded. He still didn't get it, but. He tried. 

"Don't tell the others."

Charlie snorted. "I never do dude, you know that."

And Mac didn't cry over Dennis again. He didn't know why, but he didn't. He started going to the gym a lot. Charlie moved back into his own apartment. 

When Dennis came back, Mac ignored how much he felt seeing him there, distant and angry and nothing like right before he left, and he tried to make things go back to normal. Things had to go back to normal. 

Mac started trying to get rid of the weird anger Dennis had towards him, and he ignored the way Charlie looked at him when he did. He looked like he felt bad for Mac. Mac didn't need to deal with that. He needed to make Dennis care again. 

So he stopped hanging out with Charlie alone. He knew Charlie would try to talk him into not dealing with Dennis' bullshit, and Mac was too tired to fight with Charlie.

One night after a bad fight with Dennis, he went to the Rainbow to blow off some steam. Instead of finding a hot dude to take his mind off things, he got wasted. 

He met a lesbian chick at the bar who listened to him talk for a long time. Somehow, he steered the conversation to God because Dennis called him sick in a voice that sounded way too much like his priest. And he didn't remember, like, anything after that, but when he woke up the next morning she'd texted him. 

_hey this is anne from last night! i know you were pretty drunk but if you still want me to help you choreo i can :) just let me know_

He didn't remember what the fuck she was talking about. When he asked, she explained everything, and maybe drunk Mac was onto something. So he learned how to dance when Dennis wasn't home (which was too fucking often for someone who'd just come back after abandoning Mac, but) and he wondered if maybe it would do the job. 

Then the day came, and it didn't.

Mac was an idiot for thinking he could come out to his dad with a dance. His dad was never into that girly shit. Mac knew that. If he had something more better than dancing, his dad would've understood.

He didn't say anything in the car except to say he wanted to go to Frank and Charlie's apartment. He felt like when he was a kid, when his dad left without saying bye to him and he had no idea when he was coming back. Charlie always fixed it. Dennis sure as hell wasn't going to fix it, he'd been so goddamn angry at Mac since he came back and if he yelled at Mac for skipping the parade Mac was going to kill one of them. He just needed Charlie. Charlie would know what to do.

He was pretty sure Frank called Charlie while they were driving but Mac's ears were too full of static to have any real idea what he said. When they pulled up to the apartment, Charlie was waiting outside. He opened Mac's door for him and held out a hand to help him get out. 

The way Mac stumbled up to the apartment probably looked like he was drunk but he was just. He was just tired. It was that exhaustion somewhere deep inside him that he hadn't felt since he came out. 

When they got up to the apartment, Frank stayed in the doorway and looked at Mac a long time. "Sorry kid. I thought your dance was, um--it was real good."

And then he left them alone, and as soon as it was just Mac and Charlie, Mac lost it. He wasn't even angry was the worst part. If he was angry he could just break some shit and he'd feel better.

He cried for the first time since a month after Dennis left. He cried until it hurt and then he cried some more, and Charlie rubbed his back and counted his breaths so he didn’t hyperventilate. 

Eventually, numbness made a home somewhere deep in his bones. He wondered if it was that feeling Dennis had tried to tell him about once when he was drunk enough to tell Mac how he actually felt. It wasn’t a good feeling. He stopped crying though. Charlie didn’t stop rubbing circles into his back. Mac somehow regained enough control of himself to wrap his arms around Charlie. He hugged him for a long time. 

Charlie readjusted them at some point so Mac was mostly in his lap. Mac let himself feel small for awhile. It felt safe. 

Through everything, forever, Charlie was safe for Mac.

“You’ll get through this, buddy,” Charlie said. “And I’ll be here until you do, okay? I mean, we all will, y’know, but I got you whenever you need it Mac.”  
  
It was one of those rare moments Charlie said exactly the right thing. Things were still. Well, it was bad. But Mac had Charlie. Always. His best friend since forever.

Mac nodded. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to anyone who read this! come find me on tumblr at [dykedennis](http://dykedennis.tumblr.com) to talk about these idiots!


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